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A Brewery, an abbey, a logo and a ruin

- The history of a corporate identity and the ruined abbey theme

When Pat Morton decided to set up a new brewery by the river in Sheffield's Sheaf Valley, it was only natural to name it Abbeydale, after the district and main road that runs along the valley from the city towards the old abbey at Beauchief (pronounced bee-chiff.) The logo for the brewery, pictured here on thed left, was inspired by the frontage of Beauchief Abbey itself, now partially restored as a church, on the right.

The artist Ivan Bradley of Conceptual Eye designed the highly stylised renderings used in the letterhead and the range of vaguely ecclesiastically-themed beers that have been produced by Abbeydale since brewing started...

There is no church-driven agenda here. Though many of the names are inspired by the quiet dignity that "Abbey" might conjure up, many of the names are rather tongue-in-cheek and probably wouldn't impress the Spanish Inquisition should they choose to drop in when no-one expects them. The names are individually explained in more detail - or not, as the case may be – in the Beer Styles pages.

Don't expect too much logic.

Surprisingly, the idea of the stained glass A came before considering Beauchief as the (obvious, Duh!) candidate for the illustration but about three seconds later the connection was made.

The original drawing was done entirely from memory and this was THEN followed by a quick visit to Beauchief with sketch pad and hip flask. The original sketch actually resembled the building in the photograph very closely and this caused some amused astonishment when the sketch pad was produced with the Abbey actually "there" for reference. Spooky!

The preliminary drawing was a little TOO accurate - what was wanted was a logo, not an oil painting, and so, armed with a knowledge of how the place really looked, some changes were made.

Scribbling away, manfully, keeping a tight grip on his pencil in the driving sleet and howling wind, and without a word of complaint through chattering teeth as the rest of the party trudged off in the failing light to sit beside the roaring fire of a nearby pub, Ivan reworked the sketch.

He decided to lose the front door and to enlarge the window so that it became an even more dominant feature within the outline. Working fairly swiftly with fingers that had turned blue (without a word of complaint and hardly mentioning it afterwards) he made the changes to the window. Buttresses were then stylised and simplified, as were the supporting plinths and the job was then ready to render.

No photographs were taken at that time, and the pictures here (Christmas 1999) were made purely to supply a little background information for interested readers.

Maybe one day we'll get a photograph when it is not raining heavily or sleeting.

<The final logo was drawn in Freehand, a Macintosh art package, and lettered in Black Chancery with a Times capital "A."

This lettering scheme is generally adhered to even when the picture component is not used, as when it is incorporated into the labels for the beers.

One of the most time-consuming tasks at this stage was working and reworking the gradation - making the image fade away at the right-hand side - to accommodate the lettering. It had been decided from the beginning that the logo's elements should integrate and avoid any "tacked-on" appearance though after producing sheaves of visuals with slight variations, some concession was made by spacing the A to b a little wider than if the window had not been there. It just didn't look "right" otherwise.

The Ruined Abbey

The ruin is a non-existent place but is an impression of how the complete Abbey of the company letterhead might look if it had been distressed and weathered without upkeep or repair. It is a much prettier ruin than the actual one, where part of the ruin has been restored for use a church.

The idea came about immediately after the company logo was designed, and features as a "watermark" on the Brewery stationery.

Ivan drew the ruin, originally in Macromedia Freehand for the Matins pumpclip.

Matins - an early morning celebration - was to be illustrated with a stylised sunrise appearing behind an image of the Abbey, and during the production of pencil and marker visuals, It was decided that sunrise was more appealing behind a ruin than the complete facade. The production of Matins was delayed slightly as the Brewery launched itself with a pale ale named Moonshine, and the ruin of the Matins pumpclip was immediately completely re-worked for the Moonshine pumpclip, still keeping it as a drawing rather than "painting" it as a bitmap. Matins itself was released shortly afterwards, and the visual device of the ruin on the two labels was judged a success.

The general feeling among brewery-folk and customers was that it was a unique and very identifiable trademark and, following some speculation of how it might appear next or be used in future Abbeydale products, the brewery has made a point of including the motif on all subsequent beer labels as well as incorporating it as a "watermark' background on all the company stationery.

Later pumpclips have featured the ruin in different settings and rendered in different ways, as tone drawings, airbrush painting and Photoshop creation, through to a complete virtual model being made to fit in a virtual-reality landscape. Future plans include half-submerged and interplanetary versions to go with the snow-covered and burning-in-flames ruins already done.

Though it is based on the logo which is in turn based on the Abbey at Beauchief, the ruin of the beer labels has no direct relationship with the real Abbey.

The scale of the ruin is quite vague and some pains have been taken to try and keep it that way. Sometimes it feels like a small gazebo, or the sort of ornament found in aquaria. Sometimes it feels monumental. It has its own independent existence.

 

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